


Tony's Delivery Service

by Crematosis, MarvelRBB



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Witchcraft, Cat Loki (Marvel), M/M, familiar Loki, witch tony
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-15
Updated: 2020-12-15
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:53:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28061988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crematosis/pseuds/Crematosis, https://archiveofourown.org/users/MarvelRBB/pseuds/MarvelRBB
Summary: Tony isn't looking forward to finding work with the Mundanes and he isn't thrilled to be assigned a familiar. But he might be willing to change his mind after getting to know Loki a little better.
Relationships: Loki/Tony Stark
Comments: 7
Kudos: 90
Collections: Marvel Reverse Big Bang 2020





	Tony's Delivery Service

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was written by tisfan, but due to an unfortunate medical emergency they are unable to post this themselves. 
> 
> All credit for the writing of this fic goes to tisfan. 
> 
> Art by crematosis!

“It’s traditional, Anthony,” Jarvis said, tying Tony’s cloak snugly under his chin. Too snug, really. Jarvis sometimes forgot that Tony was a grown man and treated him like a child who would forget his cloak somewhere.

Which, truly, he might, given that Tony wasn’t all that fond of wearing it in the first place.

“Yeah, I get it, Jay,” Tony said, ignoring Jarvis’s sniff at the nickname. Jarvis loved him, it was fine. “Now that I’m officially an adult--” in witch terms, that was usually 27, because witches lived a long time, and getting a full witch degree was about a ten year investment at the Magica Institute of Thaumaturgy (MIT for short). Tony was only twenty, his degree shiny-fresh in his hand.

Tony was what people would call a child prodigy, if that was a term applied to witches. He’d run through what his mother knew, and what tutors knew, and was creating his own spells by the age of four. He’d have graduated even earlier, except the professors and instructors at MIT were quite good at finding more for him to learn. 

Jarvis, the family butler, was lecturing him about making sure to check the weather before flying--

Tony was in possession of three different Red Ink Degrees, known as an RiD, although he was most proud of the title of Artificer -- someone who had mastered at least four schools of magic and could create items and potions of their own design, instead of following instructions laid out for them centuries ago.

Any witch could brew up a strength potion; Tony was an expert at blending herbs and elixirs, tinctures and powders, and inventing something entirely new to fit the situation.

Admittedly, he’d only successfully done it twice, and while he’d incorporated the fire suppressant potion into his homunculus, Dummy was often much more interested in dumping the potion on Tony than on any actual fires.

“I know, Jarvis, I know,” Tony said. “Fly to the city, get a job, make nice with the Mundanes so that they can see witch burning is utterly unnecessary -- and perhaps a little too dangerous -- as contracted with the President some three hundred years ago. Stay until seven moons have passed. Don’t make trouble.” At least if someone tried to burn him, Dummy would put him out.

Witch burning was stupid, but also dangerous. Mundanes had a few tricks up their sleeves that could render a witch’s powers temporarily nullified, and then the burning. The peace treaty required young witches to spend anywhere from six months to a year in a Mundane city offering their services at vastly reduced prices. The theory there being that Mundanes would get used to witches, and witches used to Mundanes. In practice, it tended to make Mundanes greedy and witches mostly interested in living in their own sky cities and meddling not in the affairs of Mundanes, who were stupid and annoying. Jan had come back from her tour last year having, in fact, spent thousands of dollars a month just to be able to work twelve hour days providing magical fashions.

“It is that last one I am most concerned with,” Jarvis pointed out.

“It’ll be fine,” Tony said. 

“You will be sorely missed,” Jarvis told him, indicating Tony’s bags, several trunks of books and devices, and a bedroll. 

“By you and Ana,” Tony replied, scandalizing the butler by giving him a hug. Everyone knew that Howard Stark barely noticed when Tony was around, and Tony preferred it that way. Maria spent most of her time gazing in her magic mirror -- no one knew what she saw there -- that she hadn’t actually spoken to her only son in three years, seven months, and thirteen days. Not that Tony was counting.

Tony considered his bags, which he had packed the night before, and then the neck of his broomstick, which had two carry hooks on each side, to hold a duffle and a valise. 

With an absent wave of his hand, activating two magical rings and the bracelet he wore, Tony shrunk all his things down to 1:12 size, plucked them up and stuck them in his pocket.

“Do not release that spell while you’re still wearing those pants,” he told himself firmly. Most newly graduated witches couldn’t do that.

Tony didn’t look back at Jarvis to see the old butler waving until he’d kicked off from the ground and was circling the sky-mansion. Tony waved, picked a random direction, and zoomed off. He loved flying, especially now that he’d added several enchantments to his broom to keep off rain and to warm the air around him, and to eliminate wind effects -- there was nothing worse than flying and accidentally swallowing a bug -- no matter how fast he flew. 

He still needed to work on the broom enough to get speed increases. He’d like to break the sound barrier someday. That would be one for the record books.

He tapped at his compass; the thing with having a flying home is that it was concealed in cloudbanks and they were rarely over the same ground for more than a few hours. Mundanes had no idea what went on right over their heads.

The compass, another magical device Tony had improved, pulled up the local map. “All right, where are we-- pfft. Pennsylvania, America. Well, it’s summer, north is probably better.”

He zipped down closer to the ground to see what he was looking at. 

What advice he’d gotten from his peers on how to select a city was wild and varied; pick a big city because no one will bother to hire a witch and you’ll get six months to do your studies. Pick a small city so that you can get to know the people.

Tony shrugged. He’d fly four hours north and then take the closest city to where he was. That sounded as random as any. And then he’d have to find the local Witch Registration Service.

And then-- then he could find somewhere to live, and somewhere to set up shop.

Then he would go home, take out a loan, and build himself a cloud tower with a big workshop, and spend most of his time surrounded by artifice and magic.

Great plan. He was happy to be a part of it.

*

“Stark,” the man said, looking across a huge oaken desk at him. Director Nicolas J. Fury, department of Magical Regulations, was a huge, brooding man in all black, with an eyepatch and a wand that glowed a malevolent shade of blue.

“I’m sorry, am I supposed to be looking at the eye, or the patch,” Tony wondered. “Because you know, I could probably do something about that, I’m really good with magical items--”

The man just glared until Tony shut up and that was a pretty impressive glare. After he was certain Tony was at least a little bit quelled, he went on. “New to the city, looking for work as tradition dictates. Are you aware that, in this city, you require a familiar in order to work.”

“I have a homunculus,” Tony said, because really, he didn’t get along with animals all that well.

“I’m aware,” Fury said. “Not good enough. Familiar. Like Goose, here.” Fury gestured to the orange tabby cat sleeping on the corner of his desk. “A familiar is a companion, but also a neutral observer. Your familiar can be called upon in a court of law to witness magical transgressions.”

“You mean I need to have a spy living with me to report back to you my every move.”

Fury shrugged. “Potato, belladonna,” he said. “Same, same. You may summon your own familiar, or one will be assigned to you, but in any case, you will have a familiar by the next full moon.”

“Great,” Tony said. “I’ll take a corporate assigned stooge. I can give it back, right, when I’m all done.”

“No problem.”

Problem; the cat that Fury picked out from a kennel in the tower with a casual, “this is Loki,” took one look at Tony and promptly bit him.

Problem; when Tony suggested that he might do better with something a little less hostile, Fury closed the door in his face and wished him luck.

Problem; Tony had no idea what to feed a cat, and Loki was yowling in misery within five minutes of getting outside. The cat walked along behind him -- or sometimes in front of him, or twined between Tony’s ankles, nearly tripping him --- and cried and cried and _cried_.

Which was getting Tony an awful lot of unfavorable attention.

“Some helpmate you are,” Tony said. “Tell you what, get me somewhere to stay tonight and I’ll see about getting you a nice fish or something. Cats eat fish, right? I think I can even conjure one up.” He was pretty sure he could, at least. It was sort of a limited teleportation spell.

Loki sniffed up at him as if considering his offer, and then yowled, before trotting off in a new direction. He didn’t really wait for Tony to follow him, either. Tony swore, and then scampered after the cat, dragging his broom and most of his worldly possessions after him.

After a few blocks -- Tony was breathing hard and sweating profusely by the time Loki came to a halt -- they were in front of a small building with a sign in the window. _Room for Rent_.

“Huh, well, all right then,” Tony said. “Hope I can afford it.”

The woman who opened the door when Tony knocked did not look like the kind of person who should be renting a room for extra cash; she looked like she would be easily at home in a palace. Pale gold hair pulled back in an elaborate braid, blue eyes, skin like sunlight on snow. And she knew Tony’s assigned familiar, which was either good news or bad news.

“Loki,” she said, fondly, as the cat twisted around her ankles, _yowing_ at her demandingly. “And then, you must be the new witch in town.”

“Are there many?”

“A few,” she said. “My name Mrs. Friday, and you want to rent my room.”

“Tony Stark, ma’am. Is it so obvious?”

“Well, you do have Loki with you,” she said. “And he’s quite well known to me. Hasn’t been able to settle down with a witch, so he does favors for Fury in order to keep himself in ‘nip and tuna.”

“Right, great,” Tony said, because he didn’t necessarily care, but this did not look like the sort of woman that one sassed off to and hoped to see tomorrow. “So, the room?”

“It’s four hundred dollars a month,” she said. “Over the garage, but I have air conditioning. There’s an attached bathroom, and a mini-washer/dryer in the unit, and your own exit. You can come in through the house as well, and if you’re up early, you’re welcome to eat breakfast with the family.”

Loki flattened his ears and hissed.

“Well, we agree on something,” Tony said. “I’m not a morning, or a breakfast person, really, but thanks, Mrs. Friday.”

She showed him the room, not much, really, but it would be fine. “Is there an exchange? I don’t have Mundane dollars.”

“If you’ve got orbs, I can exchange them,” Mrs. Friday said. “Eleven orbs and four serpents a month.”

That Tony could do. At least for two months and then he’d better have some sort of income. Well, he’d packed for that, really. He had a few precious stones that he’d planned to use as power sources for his Artifice works, and he understood he could sell those to mortals for a good price.

It wasn’t going to be profitable, though, unless he got a good job. Jan hadn’t had much luck; it did seem the mortal economy existed to punish witches for no longer being flammable.

He dragged his broom up, tossed the bags onto the floor and charmed them into enlarging.

“So,” he said to the cat, “what now?”

“Now? Now I think you should find me something to eat, get me a bowl of water, and consider if you want to scoop a litter box, or find some way for me to exit the room regularly.”

Tony did not jump out of his skin, or shriek in surprise, or do anything uncool and childish. 

“You can talk?”

“You can listen?” the cat snapped back. “Yes, I talk, moron. What do you think a familiar does?”

“I have no idea, honestly,” Tony said, flabbergasted. “Howard doesn’t approve of animals, so we’ve never had any in the house.”

Loki sniffed. “Short-sighted. Familiars are very useful.”

“You _bit_ me,” Tony accused, “so forgive me if I’m not seeing any value-add.” 

“I bit you to seal the contract, you idiot,” Loki said, licking his paw and grooming his ear. “Don’t you know anything?”

Tony huffed. He had three RiDs, so yes, he knew quite a lot. But there were also many things he didn’t know, and a true sign of intelligence was admitting that he had more to learn. “Not about familiars, no. And I don’t know how to cook, either, so if you’re hungry, we might want to find a take-out place. Or a market. I don’t know, what do you like to eat?”

“Well, maybe we can work together productively after all,” Loki said. “I prefer chicken, roasted is well enough, raw is acceptable. Do not bake or boil. Yuck. No milk, no matter what you’ve heard. It’s not good for feline digestion, unless you want me to throw up on your bed.”

“I can skip that part, yeah,” Tony said.

“Good choice,” Loki said. He hopped up onto the bed in question. “I also like cooked beef and fried potatoes.”

“Sounds like cheeseburgers for dinner,” Tony said. He had some change that Mrs. Friday had given him for the rent that were in dollars. He’d have to learn the currency math, but at least, as he understood it, Americans used decimal currency, even if they did weird shit like 36 inches in a yard, whatever that meant.

“There’s a diner down the road,” Loki suggested.

Tony nodded, checked his 

“How did you know this place was here?”

“Mrs. Friday is my mother,” Loki said.

Tony did not walk into the doorframe, no one saw it, it didn’t happen, he would deny it until the end of his days. “What?”

“Adopted, you moron,” Loki said. “You need to work on your grasp of the language.”

“We need to work on your sense of humor,” Tony corrected.

“Potato, belladonna,” Loki said, his voice an exact, terrifying replica of Fury’s.

Tony laughed. “Okay, you win this round.”

“Oh, goodie,” Loki said. “I adore winning.”

*

It didn’t take very long for Tony to discover exactly how useful a familiar could be. Loki, when he wasn’t obsessively grooming, or aggressively napping, could hold the anchor for a spell, could add extra power to an incantation, and could detect subtle changes in potion ingredients by smell.

So it seemed like Tony ought to do something nice for Loki. Or at least, convenient for himself, and useful for Loki. 

“Hey, Mrs. Fri,” Tony said, leaping down the back steps and letting himself float to the ground. “Is it okay if I run a temp-perm portal through the back window?”

“Do I know what that means?”

“Mostly it means that I’m tired of getting up at three in the morning to let Loki out to go pee,” Tony said. “He refuses to use the toilet, which I’m quite certain he _could_ , if he was of a mind to do it, and the whole idea of scooping a box is sort of--” Tony made a delicate shuddering motion.

“You’re an only child aren’t you?”

“Yes,” Tony said, not sure what that had to do with anything.

Mrs. Friday nodded. “All right, if you want to use magic to make a cat-flap, feel free. Be careful of the lunar vectors that are part of the demonic shielding around the house. If you cross the streams--”

“Yeah, I’m clear on the whole good-bad thing,” Tony said. “I can increase the duration of your shields by at least forty percent with a twelve percent reduction in energy expulsion, if you want to take the slight expense by using jasper as your base. Just in case you wanted to know.”

“Were you sitting on that to tell me right before rent is due?”

“Hey, if you want to write off some of my living expenses, I’d be happy to do that work for you,” Tony offered.

Mrs. Friday put her hands on her hips and sighed at him. “Go ahead.”

Eventually Tony was going to have to admit that he was not finding a good job in the mundane world. He didn’t know how to talk to non-witches. He’d worked three days in a mundane convenience store, but then lost his job because he’d enchanted the coffee pots to be self-filling, the bathrooms to be self-sanitizing, set the broom and mop to do their jobs without his supervision. Which was great, right up until his boss took one look around the shop and had a fit because Tony was _sitting down_. Tony’s answer, “I didn’t know my getting blisters on my foot and shin splints were part of the job requirements, you really should put a line in your ad saying that initiative is not preferred. Also, you might look into hiring a zombie, who would at least have the excuse of being brainless.”

That hadn’t gone over well.

He’d made one friend from that, though. 

Clint Barton, who’d watched Tony enchant the coffee pot and then asked if he brought in his own decanter, would Tony enchant that, too, had become one of the mundanes that Tony knew. Clint had, in fact, several days running, gone into the convenience store and tracked mud in, and moved merchandise around as a revenge tactic for his favorite cashier.

Clint also had a three legged, one eyed dog incongruously named Lucky. Which meant Loki pretty much hated him, and his dog, in no uncertain terms.

Any time Tony went out to visit with Clint, Loki stayed behind, and then complained the rest of the evening that Tony smelled like a wet dog. And Tony had just put three and five together to realize that the angrier Loki was with him, the more the cat needed to pee in the middle of Tony’s sleep time.

Thus--

“You want me to do what?” Loki sniffed at the edge of the portal uneasily.

“I want you to use the portal when you need to go out,” Tony replied. “It’ll take you right downstairs, easy as eggs.”

“I don’t think that’s how the saying goes,” Loki pointed out.

“Eggs are easy to cook,” Tony said. “Pie is not. It’s a stupid expression. Look, just go through the portal. That’ll make things easy for you whenever you want to go out. And it’s triggered to you, so no fleas or bugs or snakes can come in behind you.”

“Why do you assume I want things to be _easy_?”

“Doesn’t everyone?” Tony wondered. “That’s the whole point of an Artificer, to make magical devices that make our lives easier, taking away some of the tedious chores or time consuming activities so that we have more time for leisure.”

“If I want to _go out_ , I’ll open the door,” Loki said. “If I want to _annoy you_ , I’ll yowl about it.”

“That was uncommonly honest of you,” Tony said, sitting back on his heels. “How, exactly, do you plan to open the door?”

Loki was a cat. Black, with green eyes, and sometimes would tolerate wearing an adorable little black and green witch’s hat on his head. And even with that cutsie addition, he managed to look utterly contemptuously at Tony. “The same way you do, moron.”

“Demonstrate,” Tony said.

“Do I look like a circus animal?”

“So, you _can’t_ open the door without help,” Tony said. 

“I don’t need to go out right now.”

“I think you’re just being stubborn,” Tony said. “Nothing unusual there. Go on, open the door. If you can. Or use the portal. Or admit that you need me.”

“I do not _need you_ ,” Loki snarled.

Loki bounced a step forward, stretching his back, and then straightened. Up. And up. The air around him blurred and shimmered like the sun on hot pavement.

What stood before Tony was not a cat at all, but a man. A man who somehow still gave off the impression of _cat_. Long and leggy, with narrow hips and long, graceful fingers, black hair that was combed backward over a high forehead and pale skin and eyes as green as the cat’s had been. He had a crooked little smile and just a hint of dimples.

Tony blinked. “So, you’re, what, like a werecat?”

“Don’t be stupid,” Loki said. “I’m a shape-shifter. But because I was not born to a human, I don’t count as _human_. Which means I’m not protected by the laws that protect humans.”

“What are you, then?”

Loki opened the door. “Your familiar.”

He shut the door behind himself with a firm click.

Three days later and Tony was beginning to wonder if he needed to file a missing familiar report.

Mrs. Friday had told him, honestly, over breakfast, that the longer Loki took to come home, the better a sign it was. And that he’d always come back before, so she wouldn’t worry about it.

“Loki said he was adopted,” Tony said, picking up his fork and poking at his pancakes. Mrs. Friday would continue to feed him as long as he sat at the table, but he wasn’t really hungry and he was getting behind while she kept trying to tempt his appetite. She’d told him once she made breakfast for the family, but Tony had never seen any family, in those few times that he took a dish of eggs or something out of sympathy.

“Yes,” Mrs. Friday said. “Quite a long time ago, really. The idea was that Loki would be a companion to my son, Thor.”

“I don’t think he ever mentioned having a brother,” Tony said. 

“There was an argument,” Mrs. Friday said. “A very bad one. When it was all over, I took Loki and we moved here. Thor stayed with his father.”

“That’s sad,” Tony said, although he really wasn’t sure if it was. Certainly his life might have been easier if he’d been able to leave home at a young age. Before Mother got lost in her magic mirror. “But you took his side?”

“No,” Mrs. Friday said. “Loki was wrong. But that does not mean he wasn’t worthy of being loved. And I would not see him cast aside. It is possible for there to be no winners in a family argument, only peace after and what you chose to do next.”

Tony found himself eating a lingonberry crepe entirely by accident. “You think he’ll come back?”

“I know he will, dear,” Mrs. Friday said, and she put out a tray of cut fruit. Really, who the hell did she think was going to eat all this?

“How do you know?” Tony persisted.

“Well, mostly because he’s coming up the walk,” Mrs. Friday said, indicating the window with her spatula.

Loki was still in -- or had returned to, Tony didn’t know -- his human form. He looked exhausted, but also strangely beautiful. His formerly neat black hair was frizzed out, as if it had been rained on and Loki hasn’t bothered to comb it. He wore a loose green shirt, a pair of black sweatpants and his feet were bare. 

Tony felt a sudden spike of affection in his belly, relief and happiness, flavored with a bit of anger. How dare Loki worry him so much?

How dare he make Tony care about where he was and what had happened, and how dare he just stroll up here like everything was just fine?

Tony had prepared a half-dozen speeches, at least, for when Loki came back, but when he opened the door and slipped into the kitchen, noting that Tony was there with a resigned sigh, Tony forgot all of them.

Tony waved to the empty chair at the table. “Want some french toast? Cup of tea?”

“Tea,” Loki said, his voice harsh and broken, as if he’d been screaming, “would be lovely.”

“Toast, maybe?” Tony offered after he got Loki situated with a cup of tea.

That expression of supercilious disdain was forced. “No, thank you.”

Tony made him toast, smeared butter and jelly on, added a scoop of scrambled eggs to the plate, and several pieces of bacon. “Here, you should eat.”

He didn’t fail to notice that Mrs. Friday had conveniently disappeared.

Loki managed to not say anything through the entirety of breakfast, which Tony was suddenly much more interested in. He put away the stack of crepes, ate two eggs sunny side up that he hadn’t even noticed Mrs. Friday cooking, and was nibbling on a piece of bacon between sips of coffee when Loki finally burst out, “What?”

Tony spread his hands and gave Loki a shrug. “I haven’t said anything.”

“I recognize that, Anthony,” Loki said. “Forgive me for noting that it’s not your habit and wondering just what the hell is going through your mind?”

Loki, Tony realized suddenly, was _expecting_ Tony to yell, to complain, to criticize. To allow Loki the excuse of his anger. He glanced back over his shoulder where Mrs. Friday went and remembered what she’d said -- or implied -- about Loki’s adopted father.

“I’m glad you’re home,” Tony said, because that was true.

Strange, how Loki was underfoot, or demanding attention, or maliciously ignoring Tony when he was here. They’d had at least two near accidents where Loki got very cat-like and knocked potion bottles off the shelf. 

But Loki was also calming when Tony was frazzled. He was soft and soothing to pet. He purred and that made Tony feel good. He was someone to talk to, even when Loki was pretending to sleep and not be interested.

“Aww, did you miss me?” Loki drawled. His eyebrow was up with perfected superciliousness, but there was an edge to it.

“Yes,” Tony said. He got himself another cup of coffee, refreshed Loki’s tea from the porcelain teapot. “Did you think I wouldn’t?”

Loki picked up his cup and Tony was sure for a moment that he wasn’t going to get an answer to that, and then Loki said, “You’d be the first to even notice.”

“Well, I don’t know about other people, but that’s unfair to your mother,” Tony said.

“You spoke with _Mother_ about it?”

“Of course I did, Loki,” Tony protested. “I was _worried_ about you.”

“Because you’re concerned that Fury will be angry, if you lost your familiar?”

“No, you idiot,” Tony said. “Because we’re friends, and you’re a person I care about, and when that person goes missing, I’m concerned.”

“Calling me an idiot is not really conducive to assuring me of your attachment.” Loki pointed out.

“I can still like you even if you’re being hardheaded for no good reason,” Tony said. “Which is good, otherwise I’d have no friends at all.”

“Are you lonely, Anthony Stark?” Loki asked suddenly.

Tony held up one hand, all four fingers extended. “This is how many friends I have,” he snapped. “That I trust to care about me as a person more than about what my father’s money can do for them. This is how many people I would, in fact, die for, if they asked me to, or needed me to.”

“And where do I fit on that list?”

It was too good of an opportunity. “Jarvis.” He tucked his pinkie finger down. “Pepper,” he said, and put his index finger down. “Rhodey.” Tony put his ring finger down. “And you.”

He flipped Loki off.

Because really.

Emotional confessions over the breakfast table were exhausting.

“Are we done here? This feels done to me,” Tony said. “Are you coming back upstairs with me, or do you need a little while longer to assert your independence?”

“I haven’t finished my tea,” Loki pointed out. He always had to have the last word, didn’t he? Tony sighed.

“Well, come upstairs when you’re done,” Tony said. “I’ve got a problem with this invocation I’m working on. The wood just doesn’t seem to be responding to me, so I thought maybe you could give it a try. You’ve got a defter touch than I.”

“I’ll be up in a moment, Anthony,” Loki said.

If it was longer than a moment, or if Tony suspected that Mrs. Friday had given her son a stern look or a short lecture, he didn’t mention it.

Loki stayed in his human form, settled down on the bench next to Tony, their thighs touching. “Let me see that,” he said, holding out his hand.

Tony let his fingers brush Loki’s palm when giving the carving over. “Thanks.”

*

“What’s this?” Fury looked over the files with a certain lack of interest in their actual contents.

“Reports,” Tony said, innocently. “Pepper told me you like those.”

Fury flipped through the papers again. “I didn’t see you working while you were here--”

“Oh, did I forget that one,” Tony said. He pulled another sheet of paper out of his vest pocket. “This is my letter of recommendation for Mrs. Friday.”

“She’s not really considered mortal--” Fury started, then peered up at the sky as thunder rumbled overhead. “But you seem to have been useful for her family.”

Tony just nodded and let his paperwork speak for itself. He’d contracted several artificer jobs, working through Mrs. Friday and helping out people she knew, and he had almost four times as many orbs, even after the exchange rate had tanked, mid summer, as he’d arrived with. And he’d bought quite a lot of things, rented a room, and had an entire new wardrobe. What he’d earned would buy him one smallish floating tower and he could start magical construction of his home almost immediately.

Assuming Fury would stop being a dick and put a stamp of approval on his work papers.

“I am tempted to keep you here another season,” Fury said, hand hovering over the stamp.

“You’re not the director of me,” Tony said. “I can appeal before the Convocation-- I’m sure Mrs. Friday would be happy to give a personal account.”

Loki twined around Tony’s ankles a few times and then hopped up onto Tony’s shoulder. Tony tried not to wince as claws came out to steady himself. He gave Fury a supercilious look and started washing one paw.

“And what about him?”

Tony tapped another paper. “Request for permanent assignment.”

“You’re taking Loki off my hands?”

“That’s the intent, yes, sir.”

Fury couldn’t stamp the form fast enough. Loki hissed and then muttered complaints in Tony’s ear, but it was what they both wanted.

“Thanks for your service,” Fury said, by rote. “If you’re looking for permanent work upstairs--”

“Thanks, no, I don’t think I want to join your little boyband,” Tony said. “Gotta go, see you the second Thursday of next month.”

**Fin**

**Author's Note:**

> A/n Potato/Nightshade - Potatoes, like tomatoes, are a member of the nightshade family, which includes, among other things, the belladonna plant, which has purple berries, sweet fruit, and is one of the most poisonous plants in the world.  
> There’s a song in English, Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off, which basically says “can we forget about these little differences, and riffs on the pronunciation differences between potayto and potahto… https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/tomato+tomahto  
> Fury is riffing off the song by saying a potato (that people eat) and a belladonna (which will kill you) are little trifling differences. Fury’s phrase essentially means “I agree with your point, but I don’t care. Do it my way.”  
> A/n Mrs. Friday is, in fact, Frigga. Frigga’s Day = Friday. This is a reference back to American Gods, and Odin, who goes by the name Mr. Wednesday while he’s in America.
> 
> Again, all writing credits go to tisfan.


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